The third skeleton
by CreativeBacon11
Summary: The skeleton brothers had lived their lives as any other monster would. Working, eating, sleeping. But when they find a small skeleton walking around their town their worlds get thrown upside-down.


**(2560 words)**

Sans gets up, for once on time, for work.

He gets off his mattress and throws on a shirt from the floor, quickly walking down the stairs tiredly.

"Brother! you got up on time for once!" His brother, Papyrus, stands in the living-room putting on his signature red scarf.

"Yeah bro, I guess I did." Sans says, throwing on his coat.

"Well, let us go before we're late!" Papyrus says, marching out the door.

"Cool bro"

The two brothers walk as quickly as they could through snowdin to get to their sentry stations.

Sans trips up a few times, his legs not being as long as his brother's.

"Brother, we must be sure to pick up more noodles, no better yet things for HOME MADE NOODLES!" Papyrus shouts.

Sans shrugs and keeps walking. "If you say so."

It hadn't even been five minutes after their talk about spaghetti when they heard a noise.

"ggrrglgh..."

"What was _that_?" Sans says, stopping and looking around.

Papyrus waves his brother off and continues walking. "Sans, you won't make me late by pretending you heard a noise."

"nmmma. gah vvvv..."

Papyrus stops.

"What was that." His face goes black, his bones freezing up.

Sans walks to where his brother was, placing a hand up on his shoulder. "Papyrus... um..." Sans tries to find his words but nothing works to describe what they had just heard. "Just, uh, stay here."

Sans starts toward where the noises had come from, trying to remember if there was any zombie like monsters that lived in the underground.

"vvvv ggggkkm..."

Sans jumps at the start of the noise again, swearing under his breath. He rounds a patch of thick trees to find a small child, a skeleton, walking back and forth in a small area making odd noises.

"Uh... Hello?" He says walking towards the little skeleton.

They looks up at him, gurgling.

They're wearing a short shirt with the word 'Bop!' printed on it in big bold letters. Their pants are shorts with patches of many colors sewn on them. Their hands were gloved in odd three sectioned mismatched mittens.

"Are you okay?" Sans asks, walking closer still.

"Vvvvvv..." they purr.

Sans bends down by the kid, looking at them closely.

They had a skull that looked as if it didn't have a lower jaw and wasn't attached to their neck. It just bobbed up and down slightly above it.

Their shirt dipped just low enough to show the top of their sternum. It was severely cracked and looked as if it was seeping golden ooze.

"Ooo... That looks bad." Sans looks around. "Where are your parents?"

They look at him confused.

"You know, your mom and dad, the people that care for you?"

They bounce up and down happily, making _'humph-ing'_ noises. After a couple more hops they point to the ceiling of the underground.

Sans looks up worriedly, almost hoping that there would be two flying skeletons above them.

Unfortunately it was just the normal ceiling to the underground where they lived. "Ah... kid, don't tell me they're on the surface."

The little skeleton's skull bobs up and down above their vertebrae.

Sans face-palms, closing his eyes. "ooooof course..."

"bbbbb- vvvv."

They bounce around, tripping on a rock buried underneath the snow.

They start to fall but Sans catches them by their soul quickly, making sure they didn't injure themselves more than they had before. "Whoa kid, watch where you're going."

He sets them down and starts to check them over once more.

"Sans! What's taking so long!? What was the noise!?"

Sans turns around, Papyrus coming into the small clearing where he and the new skeleton were.

"San- OH MY GOSH WHAT IS THAT ADORABLE LITTLE THING!?" Papyrus all but sprints to the small skeleton and swipes them up, holding them in front of his smiling face.

"You are absolutely adorable!" Papyrus says, lifting them a little higher.

"llll... nnmmm..." They make more noises and their cheek bones raise, indicating that they were doing their best to smile back.

Papyrus _'squees'_ and looks at his brother who had gotten up from his spot in the snow.

"Sans, this tiny skeleton is so cute!" He turns the littlest skeleton around so they were facing Sans. "Can we keep it!?"

"Papyrus, no. We need to find their-" He remembers what the skeleton had said. "Uh, maybe we can watch them for a bit until they leave."

"Oh, alright..." Papyrus sets down the kid and drops his head but quickly pops it back up. "SANS!" He shouts, causing the little skeleton to jump. "We have to get to work!"

"Aw man, you're right." Sans says, looking at the kid. "Maybe I could just take them back to my station for a bit." The little skeleton looks at Sans, their face resembling one of exhaustion.

"Yeah..." Sans takes the kid's small, gloved hand in his own and starts to lead them away. "I'll see you later Paps."

"But Sans!" Papyrus whines.

"Later Papyrus."

Sans leads the small skeleton all the way to his station, sitting them down on the single stool behind it.

"So kid, what's your name?" He asks, not expecting an answer.

"Hmmmnn! gggrrmph!" They make more noises, not actually talking.

"Nice name." Sans says dully. "Hows about I call you... Bop." He says, looking at their shirt.

"Bvvvp Bvvvp Bvvvp!"

"Heh, I guess you like that name." Sans watches as the kid hops off the stool and starts waving their arms back and forth by their sides, bouncing on the balls of their feet. "Bvvvp!"

* * *

The rest of the time at his station the kid jump, runs, and skips around his station until the very end of Sans' shift.

"Okay kid, I've got to go, you gonna come with?" He looks around his station at the kid who has fallen asleep in front of it.

"Paps is right, she- he- it? They. They are pretty cute." Sans stutters over how to address the child. He decides that addressing the kid as them for now was the best way to go about it.

Sans bends down to pick them up but stops, looking at their skull that was still separated from the rest of their body. Sans winces and picks them up, one hand under their skull at first to see if the rest of them would follow. Once he's sure they'd stay in one piece he picks them up all the way and starts walking back to his and his brother's house.

 _'I can't just leave them there, their parents are on the surface and nobody else down here is gonna take care of them.'_ Sans thinks to himself.

He walks a bit with the kid, not wanting to wake them by teleporting back home.

"SANS WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO THE TINY SKELETON!?" Sans looks to his left to see Papyrus rushing towards him.

"I didn't do anything, they're just asleep." Sans says, continuing to walk towards their house on the other side of town.

"You've infected them!"

"Na bro, It's all good. Let's go home, this kid's getting heavy."

Papyrus follows behind quickly. "They're literally a skeleton, how heavy could they be?"

"Well, I'm tired and holding thirteen and a half pounds of bones is gonna make me tired." Sans walks as fast as he could with out tripping, feeling that the smaller skeleton's bones had begun to rattle.

"Hey Papyrus?"

Papyrus looks at his brother. "Yes Sans?"

Sans sighs loudly. "The kid, they said that their parents were... Up there." He points up.

Papyrus gasps. "They're in the ceiling!?"

"No, they're... on the surface."

Papyrus looks up as they walk. "Oh."

They finally reach their house, going inside and closing the door behind themselves as to not let the cold in.

Despite popular belief, skeletons can feel cold or warmth. Their bones are like human skin. For them they can feel through the bones, bleed, and are actually not as hard and uncomfortable as they look. Skeletons are pretty cuddly.

Sans lays the skeleton child on the old green couch and sits on the one cushion that they hadn't taken up. "I'm beat." He says, letting his head loll back.

"Sans, it's literally the easiest shift we have in the week." Papyrus says.

"Yeah, whatever." Sans looks at the sleeping skeleton. "I nicknamed them Bop." Papyrus looks at their shirt. "OH! Like because of the shirt."

Bop shifts in their sleep, their eyes opening the slightest bit. "mmmm..."

"Oh, uh..." Sans puts his hands in his pockets.

Bop sits up, her head lagging a little bit behind.

"HELLO!" Papyrus shouts.

They flinch back, their skull moving quickly down making a small clinking noise against their vertebrae.

"Paps keep it down." Sans says, motioning to his brother with his hand. "Hey Bop, how's it going?"

Bop brings their hands to their skull, rubbing the sides slightly. "aaah..."

"Yeah, he's kinda loud." Sans says, noting their body langue. "So uh... This is kinda weird but uh are you a boy or a girl?"

Bop cocks their head to the side.

"You know, Like... Uh... How about this" Sans gets up and goes into the kitchen, grabbing a piece of paper and two different colored markers.

"Here." He sets the paper on the couch and starts drawing on it with one of the markers. "Boy" He says, having drawn a blue stick man. "Or girl?" He draws a pink stick person with a dress in pink marker.

Still looking confused Bop stares at the paper.

"Oh Sans, come on. Give them a little more to go off of." Papyrus takes the blue marker and starts drawing typical 'boy' things around the blue stick man and typical 'girl' things around the stick person in a dress.

A little bit of recognition sparks in Bop's eyes. They take the pink marker and circle the pink stick person happily. "ggggrrrgg!" They gurgle.

"So you're a girl!" Papyrus says loudly.

Bop bounces _her_ head up and down. "Mmm! Mmm! Mmm!" She climbs off the couch unsteadily and starts walking around the brothers' house.

She goes into the kitchen and looks inside everything.

"Are you looking for something?" Sans asks, following Bop.

She doesn't respond, she just walks out of the kitchen and back out into the living-room, patting Sans' sprinkled covered rock on the way. She hops up the stairs and opens the first door she comes across.

Papyrus' room.

" _Sans_!" Papyrus whines. "Bop's going into my room! and I didn't even say they could go in!"

"I'll handle it." Sans says, walking slowly up to his brother's room.

"Bop, kid, Papyrus doesn't really want you going in his room." Sans calls, going into the excessively clean room.

Bop is touching _everything_. From the books to the action figures, everything was being touched by the small skeleton.

"Paps is gonna have a cow." Sans rushes over to Bop and grabs her hands. "Hey hey hey, lets get outta here, 'kay?" Bop pulls against Sans and fusses. "Uhhhh!" Sans pulls her away from Papyrus' things and back out the doorway, making sure to close it.

Bop whines some more, wanting to look at all of the colorful things in Papyrus' room.

"Hey, how about you go explore my room." Sans points to his door, bending down a little bit to be closer to her head.

She looks back at Papyrus' room but decides to creep over to Sans' room, opening the door cautiously. "vvvvv..."

She stops, not going in at first.

"What's wrong with my room?" Sans asks, going closer to the smallest skeleton.

She points into the room, it being dark and shadows casting all over the walls, Bop shakes her head.

"Oh, that's nothing." Sans says dismissively, flipping on his light.

Bop takes look around the newly lit room before entering. She looks at all the dirty cloths on the floor, from socks to shorts to- What even is that?

She walks around the unknown _thing_ and straight up to Sans' dresser. She pulls open each of the drawers, looking at all his 'clean' clothes. "www...mmm..." Bop looks around in the drawers some more before pulling out a small necklace.

It was shaped like a typical skull and could open like a locket. Inside was two pictures, One was of a small skeleton wearing a huge smile and a red scarf. The other was a slightly bigger skeleton that had a worn out smile along with some fluff that seemed to come from nowhere in the cut off picture.

"Aw, gee, I almost forgot about that." Sans takes the necklace gently out of Bop's hands. She looks up at Sans, unhappy with the fact that he had taken away her new find. "Papyrus got me this years ago."

Sans hands the locked back to bop, seeing her disappointment. "Hows about you hold onto this for me."

Bop's eyes brighten. "Ahhh! eeee!" She puts the locket through the gap between her neck and skull, dropping it onto the top of her vertebrae.

Bop bounces around happily.

Sans smiles. "I guess you like that old necklace."

Sans watches as Bop jumps around, straight into a small tornado in the corner of his room.

"Waa!"

She gets lifted up a foot and a half into the air, swirling around fast, then slowing down a bit.

"Wow, kid what happened?" Sans walks over to the twirling Bop and takes her out of the tornado.

"hm..." Bop says,wriggling out of Sans' hold.

She runs out of the room, buzzing.

Sans follows the happy child down the hall and back down the stairs.

Bop jumps onto the couch, causing Papyrus to jump. "Sans, this little skeleton has your necklace!"

"Yeah, I know. I let her borrow it. She really seemed to like it." Sans says, sitting on the couch.

"How come she doesn't want to talk to us?" Papyrus asks.

"I don't think she can bro." Sans looks at Bop who is looking intently at their multi colored carpet, rubbing her exposed forearm on it.

Papyrus looks at Bop as well. "Why?"

"I don't know. Maybe she just doesn't know how, of maybe she just can't, like a froggit can't." Sans watches as Bop stands up from the floor and goes over to his pet rock. She picks up the rock, looking it over before placing it on her head, walking around and balancing it there.

Papyrus flinches as the rock falls to the ground. "Is she just going to stay here?"

Sans sighs. "I guess so"

* * *

 **HELLO! Thank you for reading! I hope you liked this new story! I got the idea from a doodle I did in church so this was pretty spontaneous. The cover is a picture I made of Bop so that's just a quick reference for you so you know what she looks like ^^.**

 **Please give me a review to tell me what you think of this so far, and have a wonderful day! .O/**


End file.
